Whate’er he did was done with so much ease,
In him alone ‘t was natural to please.
Category: Absalom and Achitophel
Absalom and Achitophel is a landmark poetic political satire by John Dryden. The poem exists in two parts.
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pygmy-body to decay,
And o’er-inform’d the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas’d with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide.
And all to leave what with his toil he won
To that unfeather’d two-legged thing, a son.
Resolv’d to ruin or to rule the state.
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And Fortune’s ice prefers to Virtue’s land.
The people’s prayer, the glad diviner’s theme,
The young men’s vision, and the old men’s dream!
Who think too little, and who talk too much.
A man so various, that he seem’d to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon
Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon.
So over violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or Devil.
Beware the fury of a patient man.
For every inch that is not fool is rogue.